Teen Art & Lit — Booklists for Teens

Recommended Young Adult Nonfiction

Young Adult Selections

— Adult Books of High Interest to Young Adults —

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Beah, IshmaelBIO BEAHBeah's life changed drastically as a refugee in Sierra Leone's civil wars he is kidnapped, abused, and trained to fight. He describes his life before, during, and how he managed to escape.

Autobiography of a Face
by Grealy, Lucy 155.916 GREAt age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit.

Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo
by Lawrence, Anthony590.7356 ANT "Babylon's Ark chronicles the zoo's transformation from war-torn chaos to a peaceful park, and the heroic efforts of Anthony Lawrence and others to restore the zoo's inhabitants to health and safety. Along the way, he recounts hair-raising efforts to save a pride of Uday Hussein's lions, close a deplorable black-market zoo, and rescue Saddam Hussein's Arabian horses from a hidden stable in Abu Ghraib." "Anthony's unique ground-level experience makes Babylon's Ark an eye-opening story of how conservationists, soldiers, and civilians put aside their differences and worked together for the sake of the wild animals of Baghdad."

Blind Side: Evolution of a Game
by Michael, Lewis796.332 LEW"The young man at the center of this story will one day be among the most highly paid athletes in the National Football League. When we first meet him, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school - such as, say, how to read or write. Nor has he ever touched a football." "What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world's perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself into a game where the quarterback must be protected at any cost. Our protagonist turns out to be the priceless combination of size, speed, and agility necessary to guard the quarterback's greatest vulnerability: his blind side."

Eagle Blue: A Team, A Tribe, and a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska
by D'Orso, Michael796.3236 DOR"Set in the remote Arctic recesses of Alaska, the village of Fort Yukon is home to six hundred people. Overwhelmingly populated by Athabascan Gwich'in Natives, Fort Yukon exists almost exclusively in the margins of American culture. The tiny population and vanishing cultural heritage of this town have one powerful link to mainstream America: their high school basketball team." "The Fort Yukon Eagles, winners of six consecutive regional championships, are the pride and joy of their tribe. Each year, from November to March, the Eagles struggle through the Arctic winter's brutal cold and near-continual darkness, in search of a championship and an identity." "Michael D'Orso follows the team from day one, riding with them in planes, vans, and snowmobiles. He sees the lives of each of the players, from their family dinners to their relationship to their devoted coach, capturing it all in compassionate detail. In images and moments, D'Orso illuminates a rich and spirited heritage ignored by the rest of the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth
by Hubner, John 365.42 HUBThis wrenching, but ultimately uplifting, look at one of the country's most crucial social issues--violent youth--takes readers inside the Giddings State School in Texas, one of the most aggressive and successful programs for violent young offenders. High school & older.

Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
by Cox, Lynn797.2109 COX"At Age Sixteen, legendary swimmer Lynne Cox reached her lifetime goal of setting a new world record for an English Channel swim, so she set her goals even higher: She became the first to swim the Strait of Magellan, narrowly escaped a shark attack off the Cape of Good Hope, and was cheered across the twenty-mile Cook Strait of New Zealand by dolphins. Her daring eventually led her to the thirty-eight-degree waters of the Bering Strait, which she crossed in her usual out-fit, just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. She even swam a mile in the iceberg-choked seas of the Antarctic. With a poet's eye for detail, Cox shares the beauty of her time in the water in this new classic of sports memoir, now illustrated with photos and maps throughout."

The Empire of Blue Water
by Talty, Stephan972.904 TALA non-fiction recount of privateer Henry Morgan's rampages against the Spanish in the Indies. This is the real Pirate's of the Caribbean.

The Republic Of Pirates
by Woodard, Colin910.45 WOOAn entertaining non-fiction recount of privateer Henry Morgan's rampages against the Spanish in the Indies.

Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring
by Preston, Richard585.5097 PRE"Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained - the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens.... In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored....The canopy voyagers are young - just college students when they start their quest - and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings....The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called 'fire caves.' Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one's death..."--BOOK JACKET.

Hole In My Life
by Gantos, JackYOUNG ADULT BIO GANTOSThe author relates how, as a young adult, he became a drug user and smuggler, was arrested, did time in prison, and eventually got out and went to college, all the while hoping to become a writer.